Posted on 10/26/2025 6:23:59 AM PDT by Red Badger
Whatever else its faults — and it has many — one of the good things you can say about Amazon is that it employs a whole heck of a lot of American workers.
At least, it does for now.
CNBC reports:
Amazon on Wednesday unveiled a new robotic system that's capable of performing multiple tasks at once in the company's warehouses.
The system, called Blue Jay, is made up of a series of robotic arms that are suspended from a conveyor belt-like track. Those arms are tipped with suction-cup devices that allow them to grab and sort items of varying shapes and sizes.
"Grabbing and sorting items of varying shapes and sizes" is of course like 90% of what an Amazon warehouse worker does.
To be sure, Amazon already has robots doing a lot of suction-cupping and sorting in its warehouses. But, per the New York Times, Blue Jay is part of an ambitious new bid by the company to deploy vast armies of automated workers and thus replace the flesh-and-blood humans that may get hired there in the future:
Executives told Amazon's board last year that they hoped robotic automation would allow the company to continue to avoid adding to its U.S. work force in the coming years, even though they expect to sell twice as many products by 2033. That would translate to more than 600,000 people whom Amazon didn't need to hire.
Now, according to materials published by Amazon itself, the new "Blue Jay" robot doesn't look all that different from the current set of Terminators the company deploys in its warehouses:
But the robot is "already able to pick, stow, and consolidate approximately 75% of all the various types of items we store at our sites," and the company says it developed the tech behind it much more quickly than previous innovations:
Blue Jay's development moved from concept to production in just over a year — a process that formerly took three or more years for earlier Amazon systems like Robin, Cardinal, or Sparrow. The reason: Years of trial-and-error were condensed into months of development thanks to advancements in AI.
Ahh, yes. AI.
According to the company, Blue Jay is "like a juggler who never drops a ball" and "like a conductor leading an orchestra, with every motion in harmony." That sounds a whole lot heck of a lot like "perfect non-human worker that will replace a butt load of human workers" to me.
Not a great sign if you work at Amazon, I'm afraid.
“glass jars”
These might be given cardboard rings at three to four inches from the bottom at the factory.
“very oversized box”
Workers might be given a computer screen packing diagram for an order and right-sized boxes.
The orders might be fed to the workers in such an order that they can get the right size boxes.
“”AI robots will end up irrigating with Brawndo.”””
It’s got electrolytes. It’s what plants crave. Brought to you by Carls Junior.
Ha ha ha ha ha!!!
Walmart sells gasoline and is bringing stations to more stores.
In the old days departments in department stores were often leased space.
Perhaps:
Old Pete’s plumbing dept.
Older Ed’s electrical dept.
Tim’s tool department
People don’t have to live in expensive cities like LA and NYC among movie stars and investment bankers. They could live in cheap places. I have suggested moving state capitals every 10 years so new cities with amenities are created.
Street sellers are common in Third World countries.
One immigrant in Spain was on the sidewalk with her cooking pan.
What happens when the robots unionize?
Amazon pulls the plug....................
So a liberal company can fire workers but can demand food restaurants operating on a thin margin pay more than they can afford for servers. Sounds like hypocrisy
Affects a lot of Black workers cause that’s what they do, amazon employs a lot of them
I do the same. Select the shipping day for each item that makes it safest. Plus, always use an Amazon box, not just the manufacturers shipping box. That gives a little more degree of padding.
They’re already trying to encourage that at every checkout to some degree, lockers at local stores. Your idea is the next logical step. Hopefully that will give other businesses. Amazon is always matching the lowest price of other places, and with their two day shipping it’s easy to use them instead of Chewy or other online stores. I try to support Chewy and other places whenever I can. I don’t want to support the big monopoly, they are already raising prices and limiting services. Walmart still has a 90 day return window so I use them often - they typically match Amazon’s price as well.
“What IS good is Amazon refund policies.”
Except it is only 30 days now.
If you can find the same item and then is typically the same price, Walmart still has a 90 day return window. And you can either ship it back for free or take it to the store.
I tried to give Amazon as little of my money as I can since they are becoming the monopoly. They still get quite a bit, however. But I did try to spread it out to other businesses.
“one of the good things you can say about Amazon is that it employs a whole heck of a lot of American workers”
It is my understanding that the delivery drivers work for captive subcontractors.
If forecasts of our future population are to be believed someone is going to make all the monopoly money when they invent a care bot to replace geriatric health care workers.
“I don’t want to support the big monopoly”
The government might force Amazon to divest its captive delivery companies.
No code, it would require you to tap your cellphone to the screen, or scan a QR code that the Amazon website would then cause to open the locker door.
Blue Jay could be a bit more gentle with that package.
That would be good, this government probably would. Whatever happened to all the monopoly laws? The last I remember, was Ma Bell being broken up, maybe in the 80s?
“replace geriatric health care workers”
To become a CNA isn’t expensive. Caring for the elderly might be how young people finance college.
Another possibility, care for Mrs. G. at her home, and for each month you do, you get to live in her house for three after she departs the house.
In the UK, special apartments allow the elderly to live independently for longer.
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